The Easter answer to our messiah complex

Australia is suffering from a crisis of political leadership and no matter how hard we search, we just can’t seem to find our messiah.

In just seven short years, we have swapped and dropped our Prime Ministers no less than four times.  If Tony Abbott had been dumped by his party earlier this year, we would have outstripped even Italy’s prime ministerial turnover rate.

At a state level, the Napthine Government’s shock defeat made it Victoria’s first one-term government in well over half a century.  Further north, Queenslanders comprehensively rejected the first-term Newman Government, which had held the largest majority in the state’s political history.

And notwithstanding Mike Baird’s resounding victory last weekend, something tells me that it won’t take us very long to discover that he too is but a man, subject to the same human frailties that afflict us all.

Australians today are in desperate search for a messiah.  And we are ready, willing and able to shaft any political leader who doesn’t make the cut.

It’s far too easy to blame this revolving door of leadership on the relentless 24/7 media cycle, or even the plummeting standards of political integrity (though, there is something to be said for each of these factors).

But it seems that the actual problem is that we are demanding from our political leaders that which they simply cannot give.

We demand that our government fix the budget without cutting any funding to any services whatsoever.

We demand that it strengthen national security laws without at all infringing on our civil liberties.

And we demand that it make pre-election promises that are simply impossible to keep, and then punish them when they inevitably fail to do so.

At some point, the Australian electorate needs to accept our responsibility for the crisis of political leadership.

We need to break free of our messiah complex.  And we need to stop perpetuating the misguided and dangerous assumption that politics is the panacea to every social problem – that government is god.

The Easter message radically challenges our attempts to deify Caesar.  It warns us against searching for a messiah in all the wrong places.

In the first century, the Caesars of Rome claimed to rule their empire with divine authority.  Augustus was venerated as a god and Nero conferred more than just a few divine titles upon himself.

For the citizens of Rome at the time, Caesar was god whether they liked it or not.

It was out of this political context that the central figure of Easter burst onto the scene, forever changing the course of human history.  Jesus, an inconspicuous Jewish carpenter from the sticks of Palestine, claimed to be the one true God and the long-expected Messiah.

In doing so, he radically subverted the doctrine of the day that Caesar is god.

But unlike Caesar, Jesus wielded no political power, commanded no military might, and ruled over no national territory.  In fact, after just three years of ministry (the rough equivalent of one term in government) this so-called ‘messiah’ was tortured and crucified at the hands of Caesar.

And yet somewhat incredulously, each and every Easter, Christians around the world celebrate this death.  Because far from having the last word, three days later in Jesus’ resurrection, death was defeated.

Victory over a political opponent is one thing.  But which government would ever promise victory over death?  And yet, that is exactly what Jesus achieved through his own death and resurrection.

Unlike any political leader in human history, Jesus delivers his people not from a budget emergency or even the threat of radical Islamist terrorism, but from death itself.

In defeating the hitherto undefeatable enemy, he established himself not as a political but a cosmic messiah – a messiah to whom even the Caesars and political leaders of this world will one day submit.

The Easter message tells us that government can be good but it can never be god.  And no matter how hard we search, it will never give us the messiah we so desperately desire.

This long weekend gives us an opportunity to recognise the futility of our search for a messiah amongst our own.  It reveals that the fatal flaws of our political leaders merely reflect our own human frailty and weakness.

The Easter message does not point us towards yet another aspiring political leader masquerading as a messiah.  It points us to Jesus who is humanity’s one and only cosmic messiah – the Easter answer to our messiah complex.